The Language of Flowers
by ibgarry
Summary: Every Saturday, he saw the same girl come back to the market to run errands. After a while, he picked up on her patterns and habits. They had never met, but he knew he would regret forgetting her face. It was a shame that he had forgotten her once before.


_A/N: i'm trying to get back into writing ib fanfic_

 _so uh enjoy this i guess_

* * *

That girl was there every Saturday afternoon, and he was starting to notice.

There was nothing special about that girl, nothing ethereal. She was so very average, but it was hard to forget her face somehow. She wore a wardrobe masked in the elegant veil of expensive perfumes and cedar, and even in the rain and heavy scent of saltwater it flooded his senses above everything else. That was the most outstanding thing. Then there was her satin bows, her cheeks pink from drowning in her polyester blouses, the damage from a hot iron that Garry was all too familiar with in another sense… whenever he saw her, this was how he recognized her.

She stopped there every Saturday for groceries, he found out eventually after a month. Not shortly after, he had begun to notice her errands. It was sporadic, all reason stemming from a personal life Garry had no understanding of, but over the course of many months, he watched that young girl move through life with nothing to fear but fear itself, changing before his eyes. She grew so much along Garry's own daily routine of work that he found himself expecting her every Saturday, rain or shine, and he quite missed seeing her in the rare instances that she remained absent from the dock. He supposed that if the ocean behind him were to grow quiet or the stall of bouquets across from him closed for a day, he would feel the same, but a part of him didn't want to believe that.

After some time, he began to lose count of how many weeks it had been since he first noticed her presence. Beyond this statistic leaving him, she persisted, mary janes clicking against the waterlogged wood dock as she did her personal chores. She was present enough for him to notice her habit of biting the inside of her cheek when she was deep in thought and how she crossed her arms when she couldn't find another place to put them.

And then, he noticed it.

When she passed, there was a glance of something, something towards him. Her nervous tendencies, sometimes in his direction, even when she wasn't looking quite at him. Was it fear? No… it must've been perplexion. He assumed at first it was due to his hair or clothes, which, while he wasn't bothered by such concerns too often, was easy to assume.

She never came near him.

He found it strange, since his wares were common things; breads, pastries, the like. He enjoyed creating these things. He considered, for a while, the possibility of her or someone else not eating bread due to disease or health concerns. Eventually, he found that every other Saturday, she bought a bouquet from the stall across from him, where the young part-time high school girls arranged bouquets for anyone willing to buy them. The merchants there arranged her a bouquet of sweet peas during every visit, never the same color as the times before. There never seemed to be much rhyme or reason to it.

But then she began to ask for roses.

It took many, many visits, but it happened. They were always in bundles of eleven, always red. She seemed to brighten up more when she received them than when she bought the sweet peas.

The girl that worked there every Monday and Friday caught up with Garry on a lunch break for a small chat over a meal, where the merchant girl explained the language of flowers in between Garry's tales of toiling over breadmaking. He was reminded of her anecdote, "Eleven roses is the typical count for a bouquet of roses. It assures a genuine concern or care for the person that receives the flowers. Usually, people give the bouquets as gifts, but sometimes people will buy the bundles for themselves. I like to think I am showing a carefulness when I hand them over." She went on for quite a while about just the numbers of flowers. Garry was enchanted by the idea alone.

Did that girl understand the language? Garry juggled the thought that maybe she enjoyed the idea of receiving roses from someone. How strange.

She bought alcohol and liquor on her own, too, which helped Garry realize that the girl's baby face had concealed an age that stretched to or beyond eighteen. It came as a surprise, but he felt comfortable in the idea as it sunk in.

The mirage of that bouncing girl became modest, calmer as the sound of her polished shoes made its way closer to him, a head of chocolate down descending into the crowd. It was a slower day, and the girl seemed to move at its pace, puffs of white air dripping through her lips. She had dressed to the weather, but the cold brought upon the city was unbearable nonetheless; winters on the coast were never kind. The weather aged her posture and stained her face scarlet.

Across from the stand of flowers, Garry busied himself with customers of his own, but counting out change and confirming orders wasn't as distracting as anything else he could have been doing. He and two younger men kept a heater on the three of them, and the cold was just bearable on its accord.

The foot traffic died down, and through the crowd Garry spotted the bouquet of sweet peas resting on the young girl's arm, a stray petal here and there floating to the floor. She remained there, waiting, teetering as she spoke to the girl behind the counter.

The merchant assisting her turned away, reaching into a box of unprepared flowers. From it, she pulled a single yellow rose, wielding a knife from her toolbelt to shave off the natural thorns. She reached across the table, and the familiar vision received it.

Garry's watch confirmed a smoke break. Handing over his own tasks to the boy nearest to him, he made his way out from behind a setup of shelves and heaters, retrieving a crumpled cigarette from his back pocket. As he retreated, the other two bid him adieu, and Garry waved passively with the back of his hand.

At one particular entrance of the sheltered port where the traffic was always relaxed and dispersed, Garry leaned against a wooden beam, searching for his lighter in his coat pocket. He was always forgetting his lighters at home and always forgot to throw them away, so even if he had one on his person, the functionality of the lighter was a lottery.

It was a slower Saturday since the cold front had arrived, covering everything around the city in a veil of slush, so when the lighter didn't work, he had a feeling no one would be nearby to help. Some of the merchants who normally worked and smoked with him didn't bear to face that day's cold.

He inspected the cigarette on its own, unsure what to do with it. He dropped the lighter into his coat pocket, tugging the fabric closer to his body.

And then, a flame. Silver glinted in its own light, and the end's embers glowed under the cover of clouds and wooden roofing.

He took a puff while it was still lit, the wind whipping against his unprotected ears. With a thankful exhale, he turned to his savior.

That girl, a red knitted scarf covering her mouth now. She clutched onto her lighter, leather gloves choking the silver finish.

It was refreshing, seeing her at peace. He always saw her running around doing things she surely wasn't enjoying, but now she was here, relaxing. It was a sight to see. The flowers she'd purchased hung from her arm.

"Do you smoke?" He asked her, looking down upon her.

"No." She was muffled by wool, but it was still intelligible. He surely had a full twelve inches over this girl, and then some.

"That's good." He took a drag.

She seemed to admire him, but he wondered if it was because she was looking up at him to speak. It was eerie, knowing she was always watching him. He found it stressful, but had no heart to tell her to go.

She left as quickly as she came, and within his exhale came a sigh of relief, the burden of watchful eyes leaving him.

As he returned to his post, he caught the girl in his eye again. It was hard to miss the accents of red against a melancholy monochromatic scheme of browns and beige, but it swam through the crowd, almost jarring, escaping.

She had left the rose for him there on the register, atop the keys. He examined it. He found it fresh, smelling as good as it looked. Though the cold nipped his nose, it was a pleasure. It had been taken care of, and he expected nothing less from a bunch of high school students with an eccentric love for botany.

He didn't see her again for a while.

* * *

It was summers like this he hated far more than anything else. The heat, the sweating, the smell, the pressure to wear less clothes… it was all awful. Although the cold had tormented him, this was a far worse fate. The only good that came out of it was the pungence of blooming flowers, something he visited every day.

A sundress danced past him, a pair of flats slapping against the worn wood floor. Her apron flitted behind her, and he wondered how it wasn't flying off of her.

The smell of expensive perfume and cedar. It hit him like a train.

She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail, a bow clipped to its base. She was hard at work, two boxes wider than her balanced in her arms. He couldn't imagine they were all that heavy, but she seemed to struggle with them.

She was gone again.

He was on his toes for an hour, wondering how he hadn't noticed. The uniform, the apron; they were meant for the stall across from him. It was unbelievable how much he'd missed that smell, but when he felt it again, he found it dreadfully relaxing.

It returned, but the girl was absent.

"Um."

No, she was there behind him, and he spun to meet her, grateful for her presence.

She held out two flattened box forms, cardboard. He hadn't asked for them, so the fact alone that they were there left him questioning if he had asked for them at all.

"I wasn't sure if you wanted these... " she murmured, flustered either from the heat or socializing. "We had so many that I was told to give them away…"

Garry laughed, and the girl seemed to jump, much to his dismay. She had an air of naivete, which tickled him, but the childlike manner of her existence alone was enough to find her pleasing.

"Sure, I'll take them off your hands."

And like that, the energy returned to her, and she seemed to find delight in this new task of finding a place to put them. There was an anxious hesitance on where to set them until he reassured her that "anywhere is fine". That meant the floor.

Seeing as she had made a delivery, this was reassurance enough that her job had been done right. She turned to leave, but Garry's voice beckoned her back.

"Young lady…" She turned, Garry's hand reaching out for her. "I have a question for you."

Her eyes seemed to burrow into him, melting the core of his being into mush. It was hard to think. His mouth began to dry out. "Uh… you…" He couldn't find the words, though he'd memorized this hundreds of times before…! "... there was a rose on the register a while ago… do you remember?"

A part of her seemed to jump to answer, but another recoiled. "I think so."

"It was such a long time ago now, but I remember it so clearly…" He glanced to his right, rubbing the stubbly angle of his jawline. "Why did you leave it with me?"

* * *

He remembered that language well. He found himself looking up the meaning as soon as he got home, sliding into bed and yanking out his laptop from beneath the comforter, having shoved it away that morning to make room for his clothes and bag.

A quick search revealed a list of meanings: "The Language of Roses". He contemplated how such a thing had come to exist in the first place, but left it for another time.

A yellow rose. Joy. Friendship. A promise. A welcome. A new beginning. Remembrance. Jealousy.

Surely this girl was not jealous. She had nothing to be jealous for. Garry ruled it out. It was no welcome either.

He considered joy, friendship. Did she want to be friends? Did he make him happy?

He couldn't recall a promise.

Remembrance… He couldn't remember anything he was forgetting (if there were anything at all), so he ruled it out among the others.

Out of curiosity, he took time to search for the meaning of sweet peas. They were a flower for departing, a solemn, warm goodbye. Though it saddened him somewhat, he didn't concern himself over it too much.

* * *

"What am I forgetting?"

She watched him with ample anticipation, tiny frame bouncing with every small movement of the cab they shared.

"A lot." The words were a weight on his shoulder, but he swore he had never seen this girl anywhere else besides the port. They were perfect strangers, but now he was taking a single trip to this girl's apartment, determined to figure out the mystery behind a past he had never heard of.

The whole idea of re-meeting someone he swore he'd never met was astronomical, and it pained him. He reminded her time and time again that they had never met, but this girl refused to believe it.

Did she say her name was Ib? It felt like she had told him hours ago, but it had been minutes.

Years? Had it been years since she'd told him this?

"What was our relationship?"

She concentrated on this, gnawing at the flesh of her cheek. She had been doing it for a while, but it was hard to forget it once he caught onto it again.

"We were very close."

Such emphasis on each word floored him. Very close? What could that mean? It rendered him speechless. That was too good to be friends. Had they dated? He hadn't dated that many people… how could he have forgotten? Her face, her smell, her posture… it was all so hard to forget; how had he managed? Hadn't he been fixated on her for ages?

* * *

He climbed the stairs to her apartment like a mountain, and she dragged him along. Each step was a triumph. And at her door, in shock, wondering what had brought him there, cold A/C hit his face, a summertime relief. He found solstice in it, but was quickly torn away to another form of relief.

Even in this heat, her fingers were cold, pulling his face to hers. Her lips were soft, warm, like he'd expected, and he could taste that perfume. Something inside of him bubbled to the surface, engulfed him in something so familiar it pained him.

Perhaps, if they had fallen in love in a time before this, before anything from so many years ago, he would have fallen in love with the way she kissed him, reaching further forever. She was a fire, taking in every part of him, burning, an ember in the dark of an empty room. She was gentle, but clung to the shirt on his back for dear life as if he would disappear in an instant.

Because that had happened before.

"You shit," he murmured, and Ib pulled away, exerted and giddy. "All this time, you tormented me, and I thought we had been dating."

"I like to believe that saving each other's lives meant we were close."

She swept him up again into a mess, fingers entangled in his hair and clothes, no desire to retreat. He felt his heart leap into his throat.

"We weren't this close," Garry chuckled, pulling away, leaving Ib to rest her head in the crook of his neck. She didn't seem to mind, and just the warmth of her brought a wave of emotions. She hummed.

"Would you like to be?"

The hot polyester under his hand, the smell of cedar, all the things that had felt so distant only months ago lingered in his mouth, on his skin, on his clothes. It was here, in front of him, and she had left him that whole time, wondering who she was and why someone like her had left him in such a state. On top of that, the sweet peas, the rose, the shaven thorns… they had always been reminders that had never set anything off.

There was an exception to the list of flower translations in the language guide he'd read. Thornless roses were something of wonder, of love at first sight. Perhaps that was what this was. From years ago, to months, to seeing her on the dock a mess in a uniform, he had fallen in love over and over and over again.

With her words still ringing in his ears, he bit his cheek.

"Absolutely."


End file.
